January 2017

January 23, 2017

Ok. Here we go. I started writing this blog, and what I hope will one day be a book, back in 2013. Maybe even 2012. The book started as a diary-- I guess the blog did too, and now I want to go back and shape it so that it not only tells our specific story but is also useful. As a therapist now working primarily with people going through infertility, I think useful tools to survive the madness is important. Hearing other people's journeys and cultivating hope are part of that tool kit, but I also think there is a process that happens for many of us. There are distinct stages and common issues that arise one you step foot on IF Island. There is resistance and acceptance and everything in between and perhaps there are some insights I might be able to share the address some of these things. That's my goal. Right now it's all very personal so I'm trying to keep the intimacy while making the overall story more broad as well as more tangibly useful. Sooo.... with that in mind I'll share the preface as a staring point and ask a question at the end that might help me direct my efforts and guide my editing. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Any and all comments, thoughts etc are always appreciated.

PREFACE

I’m lying on the shower floor staring up at the underside of my husband’s ball sack. We’re trying to make a baby and my ovulation schedule is clashing with a “surprise” 12-day visit from my brother-in-law. We live in a loft with no walls, and the shower is the only place we can have privacy. So here I am, my legs running up the wall and my hips in the air, trying to defy gravity. Trying to keep all the swimmers moving downstream, I hold my nose and direct my husband to block the water from beating down on my face and then we laugh. We laugh at the absurdity of being put in such positions to create new life, and how much our own lives have changed over the past ten years.

That was January 2011. We were hopeful. We were naive. We were convinced that by September of that year we’d have a family. Junior Mint would be born healthy, a Virgo or a Libra, with his father’s perfect nose and his mother’s thick hair. He’d be the first grandchild in the family and we would turn my husband’s “man cave” into a nursery. We had it all planned out.

Never could we imagine that by spring 2014, Junior Mint would still be a figment of our imaginations. Never did we think we’d be putting the word out to my OBGYN to call us if a pregnant woman came into his office saying she didn’t want her baby. Never did we dream we’d ever be tracking an abandoned newborn left under a bridge in Ghana, or looking into what pieces of artwork my parents could sell to pay for a round of IVF. And we certainly never imagined asking my sister for her eggs or researching embryo donation. NEVER!

But never say never, right? We had to reframe the ideas we had about how we were going to “construct” our family, and we had to accept that none of them were going to be easy -- or cheap. We watched as most of our friends popped out one, two, even three kids with ease, usually taking the miracle of life for granted. And we had to constantly remind each other that, somehow, some way, come hell or high water, we would eventually become parents.

QUESTION:

What are the distinct stages you feel you experienced or are experiencing on your "journey to parenthood?" (Example: confusion, sadness, anger, denial, refusal to accept, letting go of genetics, accepting reality, jealousy, feeling I'm cursed...etc)

Are there any specific topics, issues, or concerns you wish you had some tools to deal with? (Example: how to process moving to third party reproduction and letting go of genetics, dealing with friends who are pregnant, working with anxiety of the unknown, etc.)

January 16, 2017

Are we still saying happy new year? So I've been a little MIA because I'm struggling to figure out what to do with the blog moving forward. I've been blogging since 2013 and I so value and love this community. Writing and sharing really saved me and connected me to a group of people--warriors-- who helped me learn the real meaning of love and family. My writing was the coherent and sometimes not so coherent thread in the chaos that was my "journey to parenthood," and now I'm intent on helping others navigate theirs. Thats' what I do in my private therapy practice, and I love my work and feel so grateful that other people allow me to be a part of their process.

I have the understanding of what living on IF Island is like and the gift of retrospect. I really say gift because while my time on the Island will always be a part of me, I can gladly admit that the farther I sail away the less raw it all becomes. Chasing Momo, now almost 22 months old, also makes the past less raw. There are days I look at her and can't believe I got so lucky. She was waiting for me in a freezer for four years-- I just had to find her. And everything we went through, the procedures, the "failures," the time, the money-- all of it led us to her. There are moments where I get choked up because I can't believe the path we took and the kid we got. And I always say I would do it all over again ten times if I knew I'd end up with her.

But that leads me back to the blog and my desire to write and share in a meaningful way. I'm not sure what that is going to look like just yet. I'm not in the thick of it anymore and I don't know how helpful my current words are. I've been thinking a lot about the book I wrote about our journey and am wondering if y'all might be willing to take a walk down memory lane with me as a try to edit and workshop ideas and once again try to find a coherent narrative. I haven't looked at it in almost two years. That excites me and scares me. But maybe this is just the place to share and get feedback and see if I can come up with something solid.